So with only three to go, I guess Dolly Parton's "Stairway to Heaven" (the good one, the country version from 2002, not the "Rockstar" one) somehow didn't make the list at all? #XPNcountdown

GOT A LEATHER FOR MY FRED! #XPNcountdown

#9 - what are the first nine letters of the alphabet? A B C D E F G H AND IIIIIIIIIII #XPNCountdown

Conversely, I have no complaints whatsoever about the Bangles cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter" at number 23. #XPNcountdown

I knew the terrible Disturbed "Sound of Silence" cover would be in there. Another reminder that democracy isn't perfect! #XPNcountdown

Announcing the Em Dash Appreciation Society (for Humans). em-dash-appreciation.org

I’m tired of the “grumpy genius who abuses their underlings and gets away with it because they’re so good at what they do” trope. Someone give me a grumpy genius who was abused by their grumpy genius boss and is now RABIDLY protective and nurturing of their subordinates.

News is coming to me via friends on Facebook, and via Fancyclopedia, that John Varley, who wrote Millennium, Steel Beach, and the Gaea trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon) has died. He was an excellent writer in the Campbell/Heinlein tradition, and I dug him a lot in my teens and early 20s. RIP.

Allowing this is a fascinating call. I agree with it, just it's giving me a delightful frisson of genre dissonance.

Eight Crazy Nights.

I recognize that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but that's not going to stop me from wishing that Liz Warren, an otherwise decent senator, didn't have this horrible thing where she keeps going for KOSA, and I can't tell whether it's from naive understanding of its purpose, or actual malice.

I am not the originator of this insight, but: we do not actually know what is ADHD and what is post-traumatic stress, because our society does not produce untraumatized people with ADHD.

@glentopher.bsky.social Congratulations on 1000 Hangcliffs! But also, we're back to the Utz girl. 😅

It’s less weird, but MERRY CHRISTMAS, TED COOPER! over on Hallmark, from the same writer, has some of the same good-natured, non-stuffy charm.

If we're quoting poetry at each other, here's G.K. Chesterton. (CW: deferred suicidal ideation)

the fucking Calibre e-book manager has gone AI slop calibre-ebook.com/whats-new

Every trans person you know is exhausted. Beaten down. We've been going through a parade of constant state sanctioned and private corporation enabled stripping of our rights and safety for a decade now. We are still here, we are still standing, but we are so god damn tired. It's your turn now.

The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service

🧵

"Gosh and golly, it's the Call and Molly Holly Jolly Almost Solstice Singalong!" I AM PLAYING A BANDCAMP HOLIDAY SHOW WITH @mollylewis.wtf!!!! YOU CAN WATCH IT ANYWHERE ANYTIME* Tickets: mariancall.bandcamp.com/merch/call-m...

Doxing myself for employment opportunities—come at me, y’all! 😎

I unironically love these shirts (and Judaism Unbound is great, btw)

Emphatically this. Materially and directly harming a group of people and expecting them to be cool with it is madness at best and white supremacy at worst. Being an ally means getting hit with the same blows we do *and standing strong*. Running means you were never an ally, just an opportunist.

Spotify Wrapped, but it shows you how much each artist earned from your streams this year.

This word cloud is skewed by the long thread I posted when the TikTok ban was allegedly taking effect in January, but anyway.

I love this print, and two versions are now available for purchase! The monochrome one is probably easier to read, but the color one is SO pretty. (I spent Monday afternoon proofreading the Hebrew and Aramaic, so I'm not *entirely* impartial, but I have no financial interest in whether it sells.)

There is, incidentally, still a #MusicAdvent feed, which you may or may not find useful.

It’s wild how there’s several different videos of several different establishment democrats giving public talks where they say “it’s a shame young people can see videos of war crimes online because they’re missing the context behind the war crimes”

The extra S is for the department of metaphors so obvious that I went looking to make sure this wasn't fake.

as much as I hate the incessant newsletters to Buy Buy Buy, giving Tuesday makes me wish I could just max out the budgets for a lot of people doing amazing work. I don't know how billionaires exist.

Oh @rianjohnson.bsky.social played all innocent "I'm not doing a muppet thing with Knives Out" he knew HE KNEW

NEW COMIC: Deep Thoughts

The Tom Holland rule doesn't apply, but you might enjoy my latest cover anyway. 😊

#MusicAdvent Day 1: We're going alphabetically by band name this year. I am ignoring initial "The" and alphabetizing solo artists by first name, because that's how Winamp (still my media player) does it. Too many choices for A, but let's go with Awkward Marina and JER's "Twenty Dollar Salad."

The Impact of AIDS on the Artistic Community, by Fran Lebowitz. For World AIDS Day. 1 of 2:

ADHD hyper fixation is a wild thing. Sometimes it means reorganizing your books until 4am, sometimes it means spending a year of your life becoming the world's foremost expert on the turkey in a Christmas Carol. Watch the Catieosaurus Holiday Special, live now. 🦃 www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMW0...

Traditionally-published authors (print/ebook/audio): Promote your books today in the 2025 Whatever Holiday Gift Guide! Thousands of readers to connect to your work! Follow the link below to tell folks about what you have available to them this holiday season! whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/01/t...

The research that @bfletcherwatson.bsky.social did to figure out what really happened in this Stoppard quote is a stage design historian's dream. There is a map! Several firsthand accounts! (an absolute joy to read, thank you)

Raddle Mystery Theme #4 got! 😁

Depending on your preference, you can either mute the #MusicAdvent tag for the next 30 days, or follow it till Christmas. And maybe join in yourself! 😊

your political platform can’t just be against something, you have to be FOR something, and the thing you’re FOR has to be BETTER than the thing that IS hope this helps

YouTube informs me that people have spent 2,000 hours watching my channel, which seems like a lot of hours. 😊

me: i should promote that i'm releasing 30 brand-new Anti-Planner PDFs on black friday for $9.95 🧠: probably me: also if they buy a book they get all 60 PDFs for free 🧠: ok hear me out me: 🧠: what if you overthink it & don’t post until saturday night

This is as good a reminder as any that @kenplume.bsky.social and I chewed this movie up in 4 minute bites so you don't have to… 👉👈 unless you want to? 🚂🎅🏻 waffle.media/polardepress...

Farewell to a modern great Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88 www.bbc.com/news/article...

It's #SmallBusinessSaturday, and at #Ebooks Direct, our #sale continues! Here's one of the most ridiculously reduced offers in the store: the "All The #Wizardry" bundle—18 ebooks, today available for $14.99! (Seriously, we must need our heads felt.) So grab one now! ebooks.direct/products/you...

Stocking stuffer sticker sale! Stick real-human-made-art to your favorite surfaces. Or least favorite, I don't judge. lunaseastudios.storenvy.com

I am SO good at self-promotion.